BRUSSELS
Finland’s conservative Prime Minister Alexander Stubb has lost Sunday’s general elections to the opposition Center Party leader Juha Sipila.
With 99 percent of the votes counted on Sunday, the opposition center party had 21.1 percent, under the leadership of Sipila, a millionaire and former IT executive who calls for a freeze on wages and spending cuts.
"Finland is in a very difficult situation. We need exceptional degrees of cooperation so that we can overcome the difficulties," Sipila said on Sunday.
However, to form a coalition, Sipila’s center party, which won 49 seats in the 200-member parliament, will likely need support from the far-right eurosceptic Finns Party, which won 17.6 percent of the votes and 38 seats in parliament.
Stubb's center-right National Coalition Party won 18.2 percent of the vote and 37 seats while the center-left Social Democrats had 16.5 percent and 34 seats, according to state broadcaster YLE.
The anti-immigrant Finns Party’s success in Sunday’s elections comes amid a sweeping rise in far right and eurosceptic parties across Europe.
Sipila has said he was open to forming a coalition with the far right Finns party, as both sides are against the Greek bailout.
"If the Finns go to government, I believe Finland's policy towards Greece will change. It will change for the better, because it can't get any worse," Finns Party leader Timo Soini told reporters on Sunday.
